And just like that we are back into the terrible third season doldrums. Plato's Stepchildren feels like an episode where they knew they didn't have money for anything more than a set, some actors and a few togas. I think it would be fair to call this one planet of the Greeks, but it turns out to not really be more than set dressing. This is a story about dangerous telekinetics determined to keep themselves hidden from the Federation. It is unfortunately mostly an episode about the crew being manipulated by the powerful psychics into doing embarrassing things and then them talking about how that isn't really much of a basis for a culture.
The episode begins with the Enterprise responding to a call for help from an unknown planet. Since they have subspace communications it is ok to beam down and assist so the captain, Spock and McCoy beam to the surface. This culture is apparently descended from people who hung out of earth with the Greeks and now have psychic powers. All except for the court gesture who is exceptionally short. The king has an infected injury on his leg which McCoy treats and while the medicine does it's work the king throws all sorts of stuff around with his mind. When he recovers and they prepare to leave it turns out the Enterprise is unable to control its orbit or beam them up.
Kirk confronts the king who explains he wants McCoy to stay. Kirk and McCoy agree this is a bad idea and the king then forces Kirk and Spock to act crazy and hurt themselves to try and force McCoy to stay. This goes on way to long but eventually they are back in their quarters and McCoy examines Alexander, the gesture. It turns out he lacks a chemical that the king had in his blood that is all it takes to have psychic powers so McCoy injects Spock and Kirk with lots of the stuff. Alexander refuses and it seems to have no effect. Nurse Chapel and Uhura are beamed down and there is more embarrassment/torture including televisions first interracial kiss. Eventually Kirks powers kick in and he stops the whole show. They rescue Alexander and leave without dealing with the fact that Kirk and Spock are apparently now psychic.
Review: There isn't much to this episode. It only has one story and it is a bad one. There is only about half the normal amount of plot so the above summary is quite a bit shorter than normal. If it hadn't had the first interracial kiss on TV this episode would have been wisely forgotten.
2 out of 10
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